THE UNITED DEMOCRATIC FRONT AND TOWNSHIP REVOLT ^

Transcription

1 THE UNITED DEMOCRATIC FRONT AND TOWNSHIP REVOLT ^ SOUTH AFRICA MARK SWILLING Introduction Recent years have witnessed the revival of organised mass opposition to Apartheid. Fighting in the townships, labour unrest, classroom revolts, rent strikes, consumer boycotts, worker stayaways and guerilla warfare - all these have become familiar features of South Africa's political landscape since From the inception of the United Democratic Front (UDF) in 1983, though, radical black opposition has assumed an increasingly organised form thus enhancing its power and : effectiveness. This paper will argue that since the inception of the UDF, black resistance in South Africa has become increasingly effective because of the UDF's capacity to provide a national political and ideological centre. However, it will also be argued that the contemporary:history of township revolt was not due to strategies formulated And implemented by the. UDF's national leadership. Instead, with the exception of the crucially important election boycotts of 1984, the driving force of black resistance that has effectively immobilised the'coercive and reformist actions of the state has emanated from below as communities responded to their absymal urban living conditions. The result was the development and expansion of local struggles and organisations throughout the country. As these local struggles spread and coalesced, the UDF played a critical role in articulating common national demands for the dismantling of the Apartheid state. In so doing, the black communities have been drawn into a movement predicated on the notion that the transfer of political power to the representatives of the majority is a precondition for the realisation of basic economic demands such as decent shelter, cheap transport, proper health care, adequate education, the right to occupy land and the right to a decent and steady income. The formation of the UDF was the outcome of a range of political responses and struggles in black townships as the contradictions of South Africa's combined structure of racial oppression and class exploitation generated new tensions, stresses and conflicts for the urban communities. The burgeoning trade union movement that began in Durban in 1973 started flexing its muscles after black trade unions were legalised in Throughout the country black workers struggled to force employers to recognise unions as legitimate representatives of the working class (1). Having established themselves in the workplaces by the late 1970s, these unions shunned distinctions between economic and political issues ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: Parts of this article are based on a paper co-authored by Tom Lodge and myself due to be published in French in Les Temps Modernes. I am also grateful to Jeremy Seekings for his criticisms and ideas. The conclusions reached in this paper, however, are my own.

2 and stric ;ly challenged state policies (2). Some of the more important workplace struggles included the 1979 Ford strikes in Port Elizabeth, food worker strikes in Capetown in 1980, general strikes in the East Cape auto factories in , the emergeance of militant general unionism in East London during the early 1980s, and the East Rand general strikes of These militant struggles frequently connected with community campaigns and in so doing contributed to the development of an oppositional political environment that helped prepare for the establishment of community organisations outside the workplace. In the communities, beginning with the Eastern Cape and Soweto in 1979 and spreading throughout the country, local organisations mushroomed in the african, coloured and Indian areas. They built up a mass-base by campaigning around such matters as housing, rents, bus fares, education and other urban services. In Port Elizabeth the Port Elizabeth Black Civic Organisation (PEBCO) was formed in 1979 as a coordinating body for the emerging neighbourhood, residents associations that were articulating housing grievances (3). In 1980 a widespread schools boycott broke out in Capetown that resulted in coordinated action around education demands between students under the leadership of the Committee of 81, teachers organised into Teachers Action Committees and parents represented by various area-based Parents Committees (4). This boycott spread to the rest of the,country, lasting into 1981 in the Eastern Cape. r- During 1981r2, mass-based community and factory struggles broke out in the Transvaal. These included the Anti-South African Indian Council campaign against government created representative institutions in the Indian areas, bus boycotts in the small rural towns, anti-republic Day campaigns, general strikes over wages and working conditions in the industrial centres of the Witwatersrand, protests against rent increases and inadequate housing on the Rand (5) and an increasing number of ANC initiated military attacks. Finally, during 1982 and 1983 new community organisations emerged in Natal initially to oppose bus fare increases but later to resist rent hikes in state-owned housing estates (6). In East London a bus boycott began in mid-1983 lasting nearly two years and ended when commuters succeeded in altering their transport conditions (7). These struggles, and many similar smaller scale ones, steadily consolidated a new political culture that articulated the principles of non-collaborationism with government institutions, non-racialism, democracy and mass-based direct action aimed at transforming urban living conditions and challenging white minority rule. Contributing to this growing local consciousness of a shared national political identity was the flowering of radical community newspapers: Grassroots in Capetown, Speak in Johannesburg, Ilizwe LaseRhini in Grahamstown, Ukusa in Durban, The Eye in Pretoria, National published by the South African Students Press Union in Johannesburg, and Isizwe published more recently by the UDF. Formation and Organisation of the UDF ; i In January 1983 Reverand Allan Boesak speaking at the final conference of the Anti-South African Indian Council Campaign made

3 a call for the formation of a front to oppose > governments' new cohstitutional proposals designed to include che coloured and Indian minorities into two additional houses of parliament. This raison d' etre was later expanded to include opposition to new influx control laws and local government structures for africans - the so-called "Koornhof Bills", in particular the Black Local Authorities Act of 1982 which provided for the establishment of autonomous municipal institutions in the african townships. A series of regional conferences subsequently took place in Natal, Transvaal and Cape to work out the organisational basis and ideological position of the Front. Finally, a national launch was convened in Capetown on 20 August The approximately 600 organisations that eventually affiliated to the UDF included trade unions, youth organisations, student movements, women's groups, religious groups, civic associations, political parties and a range of support and professional organisations. The UDF was concieved of as a front, a federation to which different groups could affiliate and a body which could link different social interests who shared common short-term objectives. :It has a national executive and regional executives for Natal,.Transvaal, Western Cape, Eastern Cape, Border, Northern Cape, Northern Transvaal and. Orange Free State. Affiliates, according to the constitution, have equal voting powers on the regional and national councils which elect officials despite substantial differences in size. By early 1984 the UDF's affiliates were classified as follows: Region Student Youth organisa- contions gresses, leagues, etc. Trade Women Civic Reli- Poli- Others unions gious tical TVL Natal W. Cape E. Cape OFS * * 235 of these youth organisations were Church Youth. affiliates of Inter- (Source: Statistics compiled from list of UDF affiliates compiled by the UDF and submitted as exhibit D7 in State vs. Mawalal Ramgobin and 15 others.) This list of affiliates, although officially compiled by the UDF, is misleading. Since early 1984, literally hundreds of community organisations allied to the UDF have sprung up around the country. For example, although only two OFS affiliates are listed, there are currently six major community/educational organisations operating in Bloemfontein alone and about ten more sprung up in several small northern OFS towns during The same applies to many small Eastern Transvaal, Eastern Cape and Western Cape towns. Furthermore, the table gives a misleading picture of the

4 organisat lal strength of the UDF in various regions. For example, whereas only 33 affiliates are recorded for the Eastern Cape, the UDF is strongest in this region and relatively weak in the Western Cape and Natal. The strength of the Eastern Cape organisations has to do with the relatively small contained size of the communities, the existence of a single language group, the particularly depressed economic conditions, a strong political resistance tradition, the absence of a viable state supported "moderate" group and the existence of a particularly skilful and energetic group of contemporary leaders such as Mkhuseli Jack (Port Elizabeth), Weza Made (Uitenhage), Gugil.e Nkwinti (Port Alfred), Mafa Goci (East London) and the late Matthew Goniwe from Cradock (8) The table also gives a misleading impression of the UDF's trade union support. Although the major trade union federations have not formally affiliated, they have developed strong working relationships with the UDF over the years. For example, both the Federation of South African Trade Unions and the Council of Unions of South Africa collaborated with UDF affiliates during the Transvaal regional stayaway in November 1984 which was supported by over one million people who stayed away from work and school in protest against army occupation of the townships, poor educational conditions and declining living standards (9). During 1986, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) worked closely with the UDF to coordinate nation-wide stayaways on Mayday and June 16 (10)) and in early October, these organisations committed themselves to a joint campaign of "National United Action" against"the State of Emergency. A common combination of organisations in each community is a civic, youth congress, students organisation (a branch of the Congress of South African Students until its banning in 1985), women's organisation and in the metropolitan areas a trade union local that acts more independently. There is no doubt that although church and youth groups predominate on the UDF's list of affiliates, the civics, youth congresses and student organisations in that order are the the UDF's most important organisational bases. The leadership of these local organisations varies from region to region. However, a common pattern is that civics tend to be led by older residents, workers, professionals and clergymen regarded by the community as capable and respected leaders. Contrary to a common view, the civic leaders are rarely traders and businesspeople, the Soweto Civic Association being an a-typical example. The youth congresses are often led by fairly well-educated unemployed youths or young employed skilled workers who count as their constituency those young township dwellers who have been excluded from the job market by the recession and from school by age-limit restrictions (11). The student organisations are led by schoolgoing political activists and the women's groups are frequently led by young and middle-aged women who have either graduated from trade union movements or educational organisations. In addition, there are also a range of ad-hoc and constituencybased committees established to handle specific campaigns or represent particular'groups with special grievances. The most well-known organisations of the ad-hoc variety include the Consumer Boycott Committees and burial committees. Examples of

5 groups represented by constituency committees i 'ude squatters, commun'ities threatened with and opposed to wrced removals, commuters opposed to their transport conditions, hostel dwellers, traders, detainees, unemployed groups, professionals (e.g. journalists, clergymen) and the various Crisis Committees which deal with issues ranging from educational problems, housing grievances and crime. The strength and organisational coherence of the UDF's local affiliates varies from region to region. By mid-1986 (i.e. prior to the 1986 State of Emergency) the Eastern Cape local organisations were by far the strongest in the country due to the skill and energy of the leaders, the level of support the organisations enjoyed, and the extent to which the communities had been drawn into the various structures of the UDF's local affiliates. In the Western Cape, on the other hand, the local affiliates are relatively weak, especially in the african communities. During the leadership of the african organisations split along class lines resulting in open violent confrontation between Ngxobungwana, the corrupt slumlord "Mayor" of Crossroads and chairperson of the Western Cape Civic, and youth congress activists. The result was the destruction of Crossroads and defeat of the youth congress activists after security fotces exploited the division by actively supporting Ngxobungwana's faction. In coloured areas, the grassroots residents associations that grew out of student-parent cooperative structures established during the 1980 schools boycott, split along ideological lines between UDF affiliates and those supportive of a Trotskyite position associated with the Unity Movement. Deep divisions in Natal's african areas have plagued UDF community organisations in this region preventing them from consolidating the grassroots organisational gains made during the period of agitation and mobilisation around transport and housing issues. Instead, Zulu nationalism has been cultivated and exploited by Gatsha Buthelezi's Inkhata movement with the aim of building a reactionary alternative to mainstream national democratic and trade union organisations. Inkhata's local leadership, rooted in powerful petty bourgois political networks, have not hesitated to use violence to ensure the elimination of UDF affiliates from Natal's african townships. The Transvaal is too large and complex to allow for generalisations. Nevertheless, the UDF's local affiliates in this region are much stronger than in Natal or Capetown, but not as coherent or effective as those in the Eastern Cape. In recent years sophisticated local organisations mobilised around urban issues have emerged in the Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vereeniging (PWV) region. By the end of 1986, these organisations were particularly strong and well organised in most areas surrounding Johannesburg/Pretoria (e.g. Soweto, Tembisa, Mamelodi and parts of Lenasia) and in many small towns in the Eastern Transvaal (e.g. Warmbaths, Witbank and Nelspruit). However, in other areas, UDF affiliates enjoyed considerable legitimacy despite relatively weak and incoherent organisational structures at grassroots level (e.g. some Vaal and East Rand towships). In general, Transvaal organisations have not been faced with paralysing ideological divisions as in the Western Cape or an aggressive reactionary

6 alternati like Inkhata in Natal. The massive size, steady deterioration and bankruptcy of the PWV's black townships have combined to facilitate the building of fairly strong local organisations committed to articulating community demands. There are also important regional variations in the relationship between regional executives and local affiliates. As far as the Eastern Cape and Border regional executives are concerned, they are based in Port Elizabeth and East London respectively and have had very weak links with organisations outside these centres. In both these areas, the strength of the UDF has been located at the local level. The same does not apply to the Western Cape. Relatively weak local organisations coupled to ideological division has increased the importance of the Western Cape regional executive as an ideological and organisational centre. In Natal, the impact of Inkhata repression in African areas has enhanced the importance of the relatively protected Indian activists who have organised successful local organisations affiliated to the Durban Housing Action Committee. This helps explain why the NIC leadership plays such an important role in UDF politics at a regional level in Natal. The combination of extensive repression (that hit the Transvaal executive particularly badly during ) and shear geographical size of the region (with twenty-nine major townships), made it impossible for the Transvaal leadership to consolidate strong linkages between local and regional structures. It is not uncommon for local organisations to have had absolutely no contact with regional leaders. Instead of the regional executive acting as the regional coordinators of oppositional actitivities in the Transvaal, local leaders emerged to take responsibility for particular areas, e.g. Pretoria, East Rand, Soweto, Vaal/N.OFS and Eastern Transvaal. What sort of people lead the UDF? The men and women who have served as its patrons, spokespeople and office-holders span four generations of black political protest. There are the veterans of the mass campaigns of the 1950s, old ex-anc stalwarts like Archie Gumede from Natal, Oscar Mpetha from Capetown, Henry Fazzie and Edgar Ngoyi from Port Elizabeth, and some of the Federation of South African Women leaders like Albertina Sisulu and Helen Joseph from Johannesburg and Frances Baard from Pretoria. Then there are the survivors of the first Umkonto We Sizwe guerilla offensive of The present national chairperson, Curnick Ndhlovu is one of these and the ex-chairperson of the Border regional executive Steve Tshwete who was recently forced into exile, is another. A surprising number of less well-known members of this generation of political activists who have served lengthy prison sentences are very active in many Eastern Cape community organisations, e.g. Mike Nzotoi and Anthony Malgas of Port Elizabeth and Joe Mati of East London. A considerable proportion of the UDF leadership comes from Indian Congress politics and particularly those responsible for reviving the Natal Indian Congress in Mewa Ramgobin and George Sewpershad from Natal'are two of the best known of such figures. Probably the most important and politically sophisticated leaders

7 in the UDF graduated from the ranks of the Bis Consciousness movement of the early and mid-1970s. These inc.-de people like Mkhuseli Jack from Port Elizabeth, Curtis Nkondo, Terror Lekota, Popo Molefe and Aubrey Mokoena - all from Johannesburg. It is impossible to calculate how many current UDF activists were politicised by the Black Consciousness movement of the 1970s. Throughout the country in the youth congresses, civics and trade unions, there are such people working diligently to organise the workplaces and communities. It is significant that many have served prison terms during which time they came into contact with prominent political leaders who persuaded them to drop the exclusivist black nationalism of Black Consciousness and adopt the non-racial class-based framework of the "Charterist" tradition - i.e. the tradition espoused by the ANC and UDF. Finally, there are political activists whose first political experiences derives from the construction of community, youth, trade union and student organisations during the later 1970s and early 1980s. These people became increasingly important during because after the security forces detained the more well-known seasoned activists, they found themselves responsible for ensuring the continuation of organisations under extremely difficult conditions. These people span a number of generations and are most evident in the street and area committees that have emerged since Less articulate ordinary working class people tend to be more at home in these decentralised bodies than in the high profile mass meetings that have traditionally been meeting points for black political movements. The heterodox social and class composition of the UDF leadership belies attempts to explain its ideological position using simplistic class categories. In particular, some writers make unsubstantiated claims about its "petty bourgois leadership" (12). Unfortunately, the meaning of these terms is never defined. One implication is that the UDF is dominated by people with bourgois class origins and therefore they cannot be expected to adopt a proletarian ideology. Leaving aside for the moment the questionable assumption that ideological affiliation is reducible to class origins, these writers have misrepresented the class origins of the UDF leadership. Although the UDF is undoubtedly multi-class, a high proportion of the UDF's leadership either are or have come from poor working class backgrounds. The Eastern Cape regional executive is a good example. The President, Edgar Ngoyi, is a building painter by profession. After being politically active in the ANC in the 1950s he was charged and sentenced to 17 years on Robben Island. Henry Fazzie, Vice- President, was a full-time trade unionist in the 1940s-50s. He was also charged in the early 1960s and sentenced to 20 years on the Island. Stone Sizani, publicity secretary, is a skilled worker in a chemical factory and Michael Dube, recording secretary, is a factory worker at Nova Board. Only Derek Swartz, general secretary, and the late Matthew Goniwe, regional organiser, are not workers. Swartz is a teacher and Goniwe was a headmaster in Cradock. The western cape regional executive has a slightly different profile. The president, who used to be a petrol pump attendant, was subsequently imprisoned for his political activities and after his release has remained unemployed. The vice-president

8 started h adult life as a mine worker in the Transvaal. He then worked ii. Capetown on a migrant labour contract where he became an oraniser for the ANC linked South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) during the 1950s. He was later imprisoned for his political activities and has remained unemployed since his release due to police harassment. The second vice president was a clothing worker but is now unemployed because of police harassment. The remaining nine members of the executive are teachers, lecturers and students - four of whom have working class origins and the rest come from middle class backgrounds (13). An analysis of the political biographies of UDF leaders reveals three important trends: 1. a high proportion have been politically active for substantial periods ranging from about 30 years in the case of some of the older activists to nearly ten in the case of the former Black Consciousness activists; 2. most have experienced long periods of detention and imprisonment (some for twenty years) ; and 3. most are or have come from working class backgrounds. Significantly, their political careers demonstrate that most? of the leaders have expended enormous amounts of energy conducting their political activities and, more importantly, they have been prepared to suffer long prison sentences that have not prevented them from re-involving themselves after their release. It is also arguable that the level of repression these people have experienced has made it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for them to find the space to become petty accumulators. Dr. Motlana of the Soweto Civic is the obvious exception. However, like his contemporary Mike Bea of the Alexandra Civic Association, he has been increasingly marginalised by more radical elements in the Civic, Youth and Student Congresses. Reflecting the heterogeneity of its class composition, the UDF's ideological make-up is equally complex. The major affiliates subscibe to the national democratic programme of the Freedom Charter (adopted by the ANC in 1956). The basic ingredients of this programme involve firstly a commitment to the dismantling of white minority rule and the establishment of a non-racial unitary democratic state based on the fundamental principles of the rule of law, constitutional equality, freedom of association and other democratic liberties. Secondly, this programme involves the dismantling of the white capitalist power-structures through a combination of nationalisation, land redistribution and welfarism (14). UDF ideologues have been careful to demonstrate that although the Freedom Charter is basically anti-capitalist in the sense that if implemented it will dislodge the basic foundations of South African capitalism, this does not make it a socialist document. Instead, their depiction of the Freedom Charter and hence the "national democratic struggle" as "anticapitalist", reflects a concern to present the ideology of the UDF in a way that mirrors its multi-class character (15). At the. same time, however, UDF publications and speakers maintain that the extent to which the South African revolution culminates in a socialist order will depend to a large extent on whether the working class manages to establish its hegemony within the Front and in so doing gear the struggle towards attaining socialist goals (16).

9 Common adherence to the national democratic pro' mme and multiclass- strategies by UDF affiliates, however, joes not mean differences of emphasis and interpretation are absent. Some UDF.leaders - particularly those close to the trade union movement - openly depict the.anti-apartheid struggle in terms of a "history of class struggles" of "the boer struggle against the workers" (17). This emphasis, which is common in the Eastern Cape although by no means absent in other regions, was most graphically reflected in March 1986 when a prominent Eastern Cape youth congress leader greeted a crowd of people in Uitenhage in the name of the most prominent international and South African communists, starting with Karl Marx and Lenin and ending with Joe Slovo and Moses Mabhida. This socialist position is also frequently coupled to sophisticated criticisms of "petty bourgois nationalist" regimes in Africa and the practices of similar elements in the South African liberation movement (18). When it comes to strategy, socialists have emphasised the linkages between oppression in the communities and exploitation in the factories (19). This theme was emphasised by Transvaal activists during the 1986 rent boycotts. The rhetoric of the imams and clergymen involved in the UDF is more conservative than many of the radical working class leaders. They refer to divinely ordained human rights and liberal conceptions of individual liberty. Some of the Indian Congress leaders take their Ghandist philosophical heritage very seriously. However, for socialists within the UDF, this marriage of proletarian and liberal political ideologies is a reflection of the objective reality of racial oppression and class exploitation which has made it necessary for all oppressed classes to unite against the common enemy of white rule. This "popular democratic struggle", they argue, "is a fight of both workers and non-workers against racism and the anti-democratic and militaristic nature of the apartheid state" (20). In this they find themselves in conflict with some trade unionists and the Azanian Peoples Organisation (AZAPO) (21). whereas the former object to class-alliances on the grounds that workers invariably find themselves subordinated to "petty bourgois" interests, the latter has adopted a virulent black marxist-leninism of the north American variety that depicts the black working class as a revolutionary vanguard capable of fighting "racial capitalism" untainted by the "populist" "petty bourgois" influences of nonworkers, particularly if they are white. To conclude: the organisational foundation of the movement the UDF has emerged to represent is rooted most firmly in local communities throughout the country. Beyond its local affiliates, the UDF's regional and national executives have provided a set of national leaders, symbols, spokespeople and ideas that have provided discreet local organisations with a national identity. The UDF as such, i.e. its regional and national structures, was important largely at a political and ideological level because local struggles have been presented by UDF leaders as component parts of a national movement with common objectives. This means that although the UDF's organisational power is reducible to the capacities of its affiliates, its regional and national structures have a political and ideological autonomy that has had substantial influence on political relations in local communities and on South African and international perceptions of township

10 leadership It is, therefore, both the sum of its parts and an autonomous national political force. Periodisation of UDF Politics The UDF is a front, not a centrally coordinated party. This makes it impossible to ascribe the wide range of mass protests since 1983 to initiatives originating from within the front. Nevertheless, it is possible to periodise the general orientation of the activities of the UDF and its affiliates into four phases. As has already been pointed out, the first phase of the UDF's activities began when it was formed to organise nation-wide opposition to the new constitution and "Koornhof Bills". The central thrust of this campaign was to use the inadequacy of these forms of political representation to demand substantive political rights. The subsequent successful election boycott dealt a severe blow to the state's reformist initiatives. More importantly, the success of the boycott tactic established the UDF as a viable extra-parliamentary alternative. The UDF slogan that expressed this ^objective was "Apartheid Divides, UDF Unites". The significance of this phase was that the UDF was operating primarily on terrain determined by the state and hence its politics can be described as reactive. The objective, therefore, was not to pose alternatives to Apartheid or seriously establish organisational structures designed to sustain a long-term struggle for social transformation. Rather, the UDF was keen to counter the divisive tactics of state reforms by calling for the maximum unity of the oppressed people and urging them to reject Apartheid simply by refusing to vote. The concern to build this consensus was reflected, for example, in the decision not to make the Freedom Charter the formal statement of principles of the UDF because at that stage, the UDF still wanted to draw in non- Charterist groups like Black Consciousness and the major trade union federations. The reactive phase of UDF politics ended with the Million Signature Campaign which aimed at collecting a million signatures for a petition against Apartheid. Although the objective of the campaign was to challenge the legitimacy of the Apartheid state at an ideological level, it did, for the first time, provide township activists with a vehicle for some solid door-to-door organising. For example, in a number of Eastern Cape towns, the organisational infrastructure for what later became strong community organisations was laid during this period of grassroots organising. However, in some areas in the Transvaal, particularly in Soweto, activists refused to collect signatures because they believed the campaign was a weak futile form of protest politics that could achieve very little. In the event, the campaign failed to get a million signatures. The second phase of UDF politics began after the tri-cameral parliament elections in August Soon after they were over, political struggles initiated by local community organisations began to centre around more basic issues affecting everyday township life. The result was a series of bus boycotts, rent boycotts, squatter revolts, housing movements, labor strikes, 10

11 school protests and communal stayaways. The dep and geographic extent of these actions coalesced into an urban uprising that took place largely beyond the organisational controls of the UDF's national and regional leadership and culminated in the declaration of a State of Emergency in July This shift from national anti-constitutional campaigns to local community struggles was not due to changes in national UDF policy. On the contrary, the shift was the product of the activities of local community organisations and activists mobilised around concrete urban and daily life issues. Some of these organisations had been active since 1979 (e.g. PEBCO and the Soweto Civic) while others were only formed in (e.g. Vaal Civic Association and many youth congresses). These local organisations exploited the contradiction between the state's attempts to improve urban living conditions and the fiscal bankruptcy and political illegitimacy of black local government (22). They managed to ride a wave of anger and protest that transformed political relations in the communities so rapidly that the UDF's local, regional and national leaders found themselves unable to build organisational structures to keep pace with these levels of mobilisation and politicisation. The deepening recession and the illegitimacy of state reforms were the underlying causes of this urban uprising. The recession - which began to set in during the first quarter of not only undermined real wage levels, but also limited the state's capacity to subsidise transport and bread prices, finance housing construction and the provision of urban services and upgrade educational and health facilities. The illegitimacy of state reforms and in particular the failure of the new Black Local Authorities to attract support from the afrlcan communities, meant that economic grievances were rapidly politicised and the struggles that resulted articulated both economic (i.e. collective consumption) and political demands, namely the need to re-constitute the structure of political power as a precondition for resolving the crisis of urban living. There were four decisive moments during the uprising. Firstly, the Vaal Uprising which took place in September It was sparked off by a rent increase announced by the Lekoa Town Council. The uprising led to the death of at least 31 people and the beginning of a rent boycott in the region which has continued into Secondly, the nation-wide schools boycott. This began in Cradock in late 1983 where students protested the dismissal of Mathew Goniwe - a^ local headmaster and UDF leader (subsequently assassinated in 1985). The boycott then spread to Pretoria in early 1984 and to the rest of the country by the end of the year. The demands of the schools movement included recognition of elected Student Representative Councils, an end to sexual harassment of female students and corporal punishment, release of detained students, and upgrading of educational facilities. Thirdly, the mass worker stayaway in the Transvaal in November 1984 marked the beginning of strong working relationships between community organisations, student movements and trade unions. The stayaway was suppported by workers and students and was called to protest against army occupation of the townships and the students' educational demands. This was 11

12 followed the equally successful but organisationally more complex stayawayg in Port Elizabeth-Uitenhage in March 1985 in support of the demand for a reduction in the petrol price and in protest against security force action that resulted in the death of at least 43 people in Langa on 21st March (23). It was the Langa massacre that triggered the Eastern Cape's participation in the countrywide revolts. These mass actions successfully mobilised unprecedented numbers of people. They had new features which signalled a turning point in the recent history of black protest: they managed to mobilise all sectors of the township population including both youth and older residents; they involved coordinated action between trade unions and political organisations; they were called in support of demands that challenged the coercive, urban and educational policies of the Aparheid state; and they gave rise to ungovernable areas as state authority collapsed in many townships in the wake of the resignation of mayors and councillors who had been "elected" onto the new Black Local Authorities. Recognising the UDF's\ failure to cope with this level of mass mobilisation, an internal discussion document circulated by the UDF's Transvaal Education Forum in May 1985, noted "that we have been unable to respond effectively to the spontaneous waves of militancy around the country" (24). The UDF's 1985 theme, "From Protest to Challenge. Mobilisation to Organisation", was part of the UDF leadership's attempt to find ways of transforming "mass mobilisation" into coherent "mass organisation". To achieve this, UDF documents and speakers began emphasising the need to create strong organisational structures on the local, regional and national levels built according to more traditional party-type methods: accountability, direct representation, ideological cohesion, national rather than localised campaigns, disciplined legal rather than illegal forms of struggle. The state's coercive response to the rising levels of mobilisation during the last few months of 1984 and early 1985 prevented the UDF leadership from consolidating the Front's structures. After the army occupied the townships in late 1984, community struggles became increasingly militarist as large groups of youths began engaging the security forces in running street battles that claimed hundreds of lives (25). The militant voluntarism of the youths eclipsed the organisational concerns of the activists making it even more difficult for the latter to establish durable long-term structures. The first few months of 1985 were the most intense period of what amounted to urban civil warfare, leading eventually to the declaration of a State of Emergency in July 1985 as the state was forced to admit that it had lost control of many townships. This marks the beginning of the third phase of UDF politics. The third phase was marked on the one hand by an attempt by the state to crush the organisations that were at the core of the national uprising, and on the other hand by the development of ungovernable areas. Ungovernability referred primarily to those situations where the organs of civil government had either collapsed or had effectively been rendered inoperable by mass and/or violent opposition. The State of Emergency was part of the state's attempt to buttress the powers and extend the utilisation 12

13 of the security forces in the townships. The responsibility for re-establishing civil government in the townships fell largely on the shoulders of over-extended police forces and relatively inexperienced military personnel. In the end, the State of Emergency failed to restore civil government largely because the permanent prescence of the security forces in the townships fueled rather than quelled resistance. The militant youth, organised into quasi-military action squads, were able to use crude guerilla tactics to harass the security forces sufficiently to prevent them from being more proactive than merely defending themselves and detaining prominent community leaders. It is also clear, in the light of the later Emergency, that the state was not committing itself to a full-frontal coercive assault against opposition groups, a policy that was probably due to its belief that Western support was still a possibility. During this period the activists found themselves sandwhiced between the militarism of the youths and the terror tactics of the security forces. Whereas the youths were criticising them for being too moderate, the security forces were hunting them down and detaining them. It was this uneviable position that forced grassroots activists to organise new durable decentralised organisational structures strong enough to withstand the effects of repression and bring the militant youths under control. The result was the establishment of what many activists refer to as the "alternative organs of peoples' power". The process of creating these "organs of people's power" began in earnest towards the end of 1985 and marks the beginning of the fourth - and probably the most important - phase of UDF politics. The structures of "people's power" involve sophisticated forms of organisation based on street and area committees. Each street elects a street committee, which in turn elects representatives to an area committee. The larger the township the more area committees there tend to be. These structures have developed most effectively in the Eastern Cape and parts of the Transvaal. They have, however, spread to some small western cape and Natal townships. Significantly, street and area committees have helped activists bring the militant youths under control by dividing youth squads into smaller more disciplined units attachable to a street or area committee and they have proved reasonably effective in countering repression. Tight local-level organisation has helped to lessen the damaging effect which detention, disappearance or death of leaders might otherwise have had. Obviously they are not invulnerable. There is evidence that many Eastern Cape street committees ceased to operates towards the end of 1986 as security forces began detaining the entire membership. One dimension of 'the attempt to establish organs of "people's power" was the consumer boycott movement in the Eastern Cape. Consumer boycotts began as early as March 1985 and proved most successful when they were called in support of local community grievances. These demands included rent reductions, improved housing, instalment of proper services, deracialisation of trading facilities, withdrawal of troops and the establishment oe non-racial municipalities. At one time fifteen East Cape towns were affected by the boycott. High levels of unity and solidarity sustained over long periods of time (in some cases 6 months), 13

14 helped consolidate and strengthen community organisations. The success of the East Cape consumer boycott movement helped it spread to other regions. However, unlike in the Eastern Cape, the initiative in other regions came from UDF regional leaders who attempted to call consumer boycotts without the necessary organisational infrastructure and in support of general political rather than specific local demands. Additional problems included profiteering by township businessmen and the difficulties involved in organising the huge Natal and Transvaal townships. The result was a much patchier response in the Transvaal, Western Cape and Natal. Although local activists organised the most successful consumer boycotts around basic community grievances, the regional and national UDF leadership tended to present the objectives as firstly, the unification of all sectors of the community around a common set of short and lpng-term demands; and secondly, the need to put sufficient pressure on the white middle class shopkeepers to support these demands and in so doing detach their support from the white state (26). Accordingly, the local Chambers of Commerce, reflecting the anxiety of near bankrupt retailers, were the first to capitulate, in some cases actually negotiating the withdrawal of troops from the townships as well as promising to desegregate central business district facilities and undertake other reforms. The consumer boycott worked best where organisation was most highly developed. In the small towns like Port Alfred or Cradock a quite remarkable consensus existed within the community with a virtually total participation, few reports of intimidation, and a united leadership exercising a high degree of control and discipline. In Cradock, for example, at the behest of the leadership, youthful activists refrained from trying to kill the discredited community councillors. In Port Elizabeth boycott organisers managed to ensure that township businesspeople did not raise their prices and in Uitenhage organisers decided not to boycott shops owned by Cheeky Watson, a well-known white supporter of the black political organisations. Regional differences in the effectiveness of the boycotts reflected the varying quality of UDF organisation and influence in It is relatively weak in Natal. Here the often bloody antipathy which exists between it and Inkhata has seriousiy weakened UDF organisation in the black townships (27). However, where trade unions initiated consumer boycotts in Natal the campaign was relatively successful because the factories provided important spaces for organisation to take place protected from Inkhata intimidation. However, even the trade union innitiated consumer boycotts had to eventually be called off after Inkhata businesspeople threatened violent retaliation. In the Transvaal, Pretoria and the East Rand were better organised than Soweto. But it is in the Eastern Cape communities where the UDF seems most deeply entrenched through its various affiliates. Where street and area committees were strongly developed, the consumer boycott was most effective. Notwithstanding the deaths, dlssappearances and detentions which 14

15 decimated the leadership of the UDF since it inception, the roots of the movement for national liberation ii. represents began to penetrate certain communities too profoundly for its influence 'to be eradicated coercively. And with this democratic entrenchment in many working class communities, the UDF is likely to generate an increasingly radical conception of a liberated society. The concept of "people's power", for example, is more than a mobilising slogan. The new forms of organisation which have developed during the revolt in the townships are in themselves rudimentary organs of self-government. The collapse of. state authority and the legitimacy of the UDF-affillated community organsations has enabled these organisations to take responsibility for administering a number of township services. Evidence that political consciousness in the townships has become increasingly combative emerged during 1986 with the spread of the rent boycott to 54 townships countrywide involving about households and costing the state at least R40 million per month. Significantly, most of the townships hit by rent boycotts are in the Transvaal because since 1985 these communities have been rapidly organised, in some cases on a street committee basis (e.g. Soweto). The rent boycotts are a response to both, economic and political grievances. Economic grievances are directly related to the level and quality of urban subsistence: declining real wages as inflation increases the costs of basic foodstuffs and transport by 20%; overcrowding with a national average of 12- people per household; massive housing shortages (conservative estimates are that there is a shortage of housing units); rising rent and service charges (sometimes by 100%), and a growing number of unemployed people as the unemployment rate moves beyond the 40% mark. Political grievances are directly linked to the state's failure to give blacks substantive political rights in general and the persistent inadequacy and illegitimacy of the Black Local Authorities in particular. A UDF information pamphlet issued in August 1986 starts by pointing out that rents are not being paid because "people are simply unable t's^tt" and proceeds to link the boycott to political demands: "The [rent] boycott is also part of an attempt to make all the structures of apartheid unworkable. The black local authorities are structures designed to make apartheid work - to make people participate in their own domination by a white minority government. The rent boycott weakens these structures and demonstrates to the government that there can be no taxation without representation and that the people will accept nothing less than majority rule." In most cases the rent boycott began in response to a sudden change in the relationship between the communities and the state: the shooting of 30 people in Mamelodi, the declaration of the 1986 State of Emergency in Port Elizabeth, the forced removal of people in Uitenhage and the failure of a local official to keep his promise to meet the community in Parys. The cumulative effect, however, of all the rent boycotts is that they have united people around a strategy which has the potential to sustain itself for a considerable length of time. Once people do not pay rent for two or three months, the chances of them 15

16 resuming th payments are low because the state expects them to pay their arrears as well. The rent boycotts are a good indication of the extent to which the black majority are prepared to cease supporting the state system in a very practical way. More importantly, however, unlike the consumer boycotts which aimed at pressurising the state via the efforts of middle class white commercial interests, the rent boycott challenges the state directly. It undermines the fiscal foundations of township administration and has recieved the full support of both trade union and community organisations. One result of this unity is that trade unions succeeded in preventing employers from agreeing to a State Security Council recommendation that rents be deducted from pay packets through stoporders. It is unlikely that the State of Emergency will "normalise" local government and "restore law and order" in the townships as long as the rent boycott persists. Nor is it likely the rent boycott will end before the State of Emergency has been lifted. In short, through the rent boycott, the communities are directly confronting the? state over a sustained period of time. The stakes, therefore, are getting higher. Who wins this round may well be critical for the long-term future of black politics. The central role played by the black working class - with the full support of all the major trade unions - in sustaining the rent boycotts to defend their already declining living standards from further erosion, makes it imperative the interests of this class become the central focus of oppositional organisations in the future. The UDF and Black Politics A recent article by Alex Callinicos writes off the UDF as a "populist" organisation whose local affiliates are, 1) weak and small, 2) limited by a failure to make connections between oppression in the community and exploitation in the workplace, 3) reluctant to identify class distinctions, and 4) dominated by an intellectual petty bourgois leadership that subscribes to a reformist ideology (28). There are very few black communities in South Africa where no UDF affiliate exists. From the small rural and urban villages in the Northern Transvaal, to the metropolitan agglomerations of the Witwatersrand, to the towns and metropolises of the Cape, there are UDF affiliates. The strength of the UDF derives primarily from the popularity and organisational capacity of its affiliates, even though these differ considerably in size and effectiveness. The national executive in and of itself does not constitute a significant political force mainly because most of the leadership has spent much of the last three years in detention. Some regional executives are more active because they interact more intimately with the local community organisations. The UDF's primary organising activities are appropriately rooted in South Africa's oppressed and exploited communities. This does not mean that national initiatives are non-existent. It has already been menti/bned that the UDF played a crucial role in national campaigns against the new constitution and the Black Local Authorities. Other national campaigns included boycotts of 16

17 international sports teams, opposition to the State of Emergency and the so-called "Legrange Bills" in early 1986 (i.e. amendments to the Internal Security Act and Public Safety Act to provide for additional powers for the security forces) and more recently the National United Action campaign which involves joint action with the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the National Education crisis Committee. Although the UDF's support is best judged in terms of its organisational practices and structures, some recent surveys into black political attitudes also suggest that the UDF and organisations, personalities and political traditions it is identified with are the roost widely supported in the african townships (29). The HSRC survey points out that "Mandela definitely enjoys greater support than any other black leader" and that organisations like the ANC and other related extraparliamentary groups enjoy about three times more support than pro-government black leaders and organisations. The results of two surveys (30) into support among urban blacks for various political groups are listed in the table below: Political group HSRC survey Schlemmer survey ANC/Mandela 20,0% 27,0% UDF 19,8% 11,0% AZAPO 19,6% 5,0% Inkhata/Buthelezi 18,9% 14,0% Other/none 55,0% 43,0% If it is assumed that ANC supporters are also UDF supporters by virtue of the fact that both organisations subscibe to the Freedom Charter and that the only major difference between them is the ANC's commitment to armed struggle, then it becomes apparent that support amongst urban africans for the ANC/UDF political movement far outstrips support for AZAPO and Inkhata. The fact that both these surveys were done in 1984 means that they do not reflect how the UDF's support base has expanded since then. The UDF had only been in existence for less than a year at that stage and since 1984 nation-wide township rebellion has been oriented around UDF affiliates. It is also interesting to note why UDF supporters said they supported the UDF. The HSRC identified the following reasons (31): Reason for supporting the UDF % Fights for democracy 35,6 Solves our problems 17,1 Represents all groups 12,7 Makes people aware of their rights 8,6 Helps people fight for their rights 5,8 Will help blacks 5,8 Does nothing wrong 2,4 Will bring peace to South Africa 2,4 Unites blacks 1,4 Represents students 0,7 17

18 Other reasons 6,2 No reason 1,4 Total 100,1 In short, the overwhelming majority of respondents who said they supported the UDF did so because in one way or another they see the UDF as an organisation that will help black people achieve political rights and resolve their social problems. This conforms pretty closely to how the UDF's national leaders have attempted against all odds to present the aim of the Front. If we take into account the mass campaigns, organisational networks and (less reliable) attitudinal survey data discussed above, it is difficult to see how Callinicos can conclude that the UDF is not supported by a sound organisational base. Although no doubt this base is regionally uneven, he is incorrect to make judgements about the'udf'purely on the basis of an assessment of its Western Cape structures as they were in There are enough examples of struggles and campaigns conducted under the auspices of UDF affiliates to confirm that the connection between exploitation in the workplace and oppression in the community has not been ignored. The most outstanding examples are the numerous transport struggles in East London, Durban, Capetown, Port Elizabeth, Kirkwood and Soweto. Struggles over transport revolve primarily around working class commuters because they feel most acutely the relationship between oppression in outlying townships and exploitation in their citybased workplaces located between 15 and 200 kms from home (32). The same connection has been made in the rent boycotts. Although Civic leaders quoted in the press refer to rent boycotts largely in terms of a struggle against Apartheid local government, the pamphlets distributed and speeches made by the youth and working class activists on the ground constantly make the link between economic exploitation and the abysmal deeply resented living conditions in the townships. It was these types of connections, forged during painful violent struggles (beyond the abode of the intellectuals), that gradually became the foundations for united action between trade unions, community organisations and student movements - action which culminated in the dramatic nationwide stayaways of 1986 (33). Finally, the UDF is presented as a multi-class organisation dominated by a petty bourgeois leadership (34). The empirical inaccuracy of this view has already been demonstrated. At local, regional and national level the class character of the UDF is such that it cannot be defined as the property of any one class. Instead, as the critics admit, the UDF is widely supported by a range of classes. However, this paper has attempted to show that as levels of conflict between the oppressed communities and state have escalated outside the workplace, the UDF's local affiliates have become progressively more entrenched in the poor working class communities. During 1986 this led to a radicalisation of its ideology and democratisation of its structures as working class people asserted their right to control their organisations both in and outside the workplaces. This is why the state, after the 1986 Emergency was declared in June, decided to launch a full 18

19 frontal assault to head-off this radicalis: movement. Not surprisingly, the state has pursued this objective more systematically and ruthlessly in the Eastern Cape than in any other region. As far as lessons for the future are concerned, two issues will become important when the space for open legal organisation is regained. Firstly, to what extent will a Front-type structure be appropriate in the future? Although a structure of this kind has proven to be appropriate in most authoritarian societies, the two outstanding features about the democratic movement is the strength of the trade unions and the resilience of the locallevel community organisations. Depending on the terrain of struggle that will arise in the future, a structure may be necessary founded more coherently on the democratic structures of these community and workplace organisations. Secondly, how can an organisational infrastructure be developed capable of coping with the rapid radicalisatlon and politicisation of the masses that inevitably occurs during periods of rebellion? A critical problem faced by political activists since the uprising began in 1984 was how to hold back political mobilisation in order to build up organisations to guide and direct the oppositional movements. A combination of repression and. organisational inexperience prevented them from resolving this problem. In the end, the communities - particularly the youth - moved too quickly to take on the full might of the state unprotected, despite the street committee system, by sound organisation. Conclusion The UDF has been shaped by pressures and processes largely beyond its control as the dynamics of black resistance have shifted from reactive politics to the attempt to establish proactive organs of democracy in the communities, schools and factories. Whereas the former involved reactive strategies to contest the legitimacy of state reforms on terrain determined largely by the state, the latter has evolved as the reforms have to all intents and purposes failed. Today the mass-based community organisations can play a crucial role in shaping the political terrain in a way they have never been able to in the past. Despite the UDF's severly weakened national organisational structures due to the impact of successive repressive assaults, its "affiliates and leaders will nevertheless remain crucial representatives of South Africa's black majority in the future. When considering, the future of South African black politics, it would be mistake to accept in part or in full the state's propaganda that has attempted to depict the UDF as a minority group located on the radical left-wing fringe. Nor is it the unproblematic vehicle for a reformist petty bourgoisie bent on capturing state power to use against big white capital and black working class. It is not a pressure-group, nor is it a political party. It is essentially what its architects had always intended it to be: a Front representative of a very broad spectrum of South African political opinion. Beneath this formal level of public appearances, however, is a highly complex network of local organisations that have mounted campaigns and struggles that have begun to generate an increasingly radical conception of a liberated society and the road that should be adopted to achieve 19